Secrets and Lies

Australian writer Anna Funder spent several years living in the former East Germany researching the impact of the secret police, the Stasi. Funder interviews those who were followed, imprisoned and brutalised by the Stasi and tells their distressing tales. But she also speaks with the former Stasi members to try to comprehend their side of the story.

In Stasiland – Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall (2003), Funder proves that truth can be stranger than fiction. She uncovers the techniques the Stasi used to spy on the East German people and its own officers. Apparently one in six East Germans was an informer, and many became so after intense pressure, threats and deceit. 

Describing her investigations in the first person, Funder introduces the reader to people with fascinating stories of life behind the Berlin Wall. Placing an ad in the personal columns of a Potsdam paper, Funder sought “former Stasi officers and unofficial collaborators” yielding an impressive cache of interviewees.

The victim stories are harrowing. There is Frau Paul, separated from her infant son by the Wall, desperate to be reunited but unwilling to be bait in a trap to capture Stasi enemies. There is Julia who was called before the Stasi and interrogated about the contents of her love letters in an attempt to turn her into an informer. And there is Miriam, imprisoned, interrogated and deprived of sleep at age 16 for attempting to flee to the West, who is still fighting to find out the truth of what happened to her husband Charlie when he died in Stasi custody.

Funder also interviews those on the other side. She meets TV commentator and chief propagandist Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler who viewed the Wall as necessary to prevent “imperialism from contaminating the east”. Herr Winz, who spent 30 years in counter-espionage, remains a committed anti-capitalist waiting for the second coming of socialism. Hagen Koch painted the line which marked our where the Wall would be erected and Herr Christian who encoded transcripts of intercepted conversations.

I loved Anna Funder’s writing style and the way she placed herself in the story – sitting at the table interviewing subjects, drinking with Stati men, describing their encounters in dark pubs and cafes. I also admired the way she found humour among the sadness. I look forward to reading Funder’s first novel, All That I Am (2011) to enjoy more of her writing. Stasiland won the BBC Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction and was shortlisted for the Guardian first book award.

My review of Anna Funder's debut novel All That I Am is also available on this blog.

Tales of the City

I must admit that I judged Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy (1985-1986) by its cover. It was the look and feel of the book that persuaded me to buy it. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition seduced me with its cover art by renowned cartoonist and artist Art Spiegelman. The image of the three books on the carpet, a limp hand clutching a fountain pen, blood spots and some unknown person standing over the scene intrigued me. Spiegelman also did full colour title page for each of the novels inside, which neatly divide the text, and a map of New York’s Upper West Side on the back cover. But it wasn’t just the cover art that seduced me: the cover flaps, the embossing of the author’s name, and corrugated paper stock provide a tactile delight, which remind me why I will never fully convert to e-books.

Beyond my superficial reasons for purchase I also wanted to read my first Paul Auster. His name appeared many times on must-read book lists (for example, “The 1001 books you must read before you die”) so I thought it was time to explore his work. Having read The New York Trilogy, however, I will not be in a hurry to read any more Auster.

The first part of the trilogy, City of Glass, tells the story of Quinn, a mystery writer who poses as a detective in a case that he hopes will provide material for his novels. As he becomes more embedded in the case, Quinn spends months on a stakeout in the streets with his obsession leading to his ruin.  In Ghosts a private eye named Blue is hired by White to investigate a man named Black on Orange Street (the colour wheel is exhausted by the end of the story). The final story, The Locked Room, centres on a writer asked to help locate his childhood friend who has gone missing. I thought this was the best tale in the trilogy because it was linear and had more fully-formed characters. I particularly liked the description of the author’s childhood with his friend.

I must admit I am not sure what to make of this book as Auster plays with the reader’s mind with the interlinked stories and recurring themes. Using the devices of metafiction to raise questions of truth and identity, this is a postmodern detective tale. While there were parts I thoroughly enjoyed, my overall feeling is ambivalence. Perhaps I liked the idea of the book, rather than the book itself. Reading reviews of this book online it appears that many readers found deeper meanings that I did not. Regardless, my curiosity about Auster has been satiated and if nothing else I have a beautiful book that looks lovely on my bookcase!

Pride and Prejudice

Set in London in 1948 with flashbacks to the time ‘before’, Andrea Levy’s Small Island is a story of race, colonialism, imperialism, sexuality and war. The book focuses on two couples brought together in a London boarding house.  

Jamaican Gilbert joins the Royal Air Force to defend England, his ‘mother country’ during WWII. He brings his new wife, the prim and proper Hortense, to live with him in London. Being raised in the colonies dreaming of England, Hortense has high hopes for her new life and is horrified to see the dilapidated bedsit Gilbert has secured as their home. Hortense had also never experienced racism until she moves to the UK. When she realizes that her qualifications will not be recognized and she is unable to find work as a teacher, she is humiliated. As a proud woman this rejection is a substantial blow to her ego and jolts her from her naivety.

Working class couple Queenie Bligh and her husband Bernard live in London. When Bernard goes off to war Queenie takes in boarders to make ends meet. Her tenants are mostly Jamaican immigrants like Gilbert. Queenie stands out among her neighbours for her opposition to their racial prejudice. She also finds that her husband harbours racist views.

Told in alternating narratives by each of the four characters with their own distinct voice, the book flows beautifully and seamlessly. While quite a long book, the story is gripping and it is a fairly quick read. Andrea Levy won the Orange Prize for Fiction for Small Island, as well as the Whitbread Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. These accolades are well deserved as Levy has created a magical work of literary fiction.

Small Island has been made into an excellent BBC miniseries starring Ruth Wilson (Queenie), Benedict Cumberbatch (Bernard), Naomie Harris (Hotense) and David Oyelowo (Gilbert).  The actors are phenomenal and bring the characters to life. Well worth viewing this adaptation, but best to do so after reading the book so as to get the most from the novel.

Time proved the representation false

Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) is a classic of American fiction and has been hailed as a must-read ‘novel of the century’. Writing in a journalistic fashion, Drieser describes in realistic detail the lives of his characters. He does not moralise or judge them, but presents in a factual manner their successes and failures. His style is welcoming and makes for an interesting read, but at 650 pages I admit I did find that it was a bit slow in parts and in need of an edit to hasten the pace.

The story focuses on Carrie Meeber who leaves her Wisconsin home to move to Chicago in the hopes of finding employment. Initially staying with her sister’s family, Carrie secures employment in a shoe factory for $4.50 a week, most of which is spent on room and board rather than the fine clothes and trinkets she covets. She meets salesman Charles Drouet who convinces Carrie to quit her job and move in with him, promising marriage once he is financially secure. Later Drouet introduces Carrie to Hurstwood, a socially respectable manager. Hurstwood is enamored by Carrie’s beauty and youth and begins to woo her away from his friend. Carrie, believing she is trading up, responds favourably to his attention. Determined to have Carrie at all costs, Hurstwood leaves his wife and children, steals money from his employer, and takes Carrie to New York. Over the next few years Hurstwood fails to earn enough money to keep Carrie in the style she wishes and they continually have to downgrade their lodgings and Carrie’s expectations. Their relationship strains and Carrie falls out of love. Eventually she asserts herself and becomes employed as an admired actress, while Hurstwood fails to secure work and is ruined.

The novel contrasts the fortunes of the three main characters: Carrie, Drouet and Hurstwood. Each one wants something unobtainable, lured by material things and the desire for upward mobility. Ultimately they will keep dreaming for happiness, while ending up lonely and longing for human connection.

The beauty of the novel is in its writing. I enjoyed reading Dreiser’s descriptions of the early days of Chicago and things like department stores that were just being developed. His depiction of homelessness and striking transport workers is compelling. The other thing I loved about this book were the random awesomeness of the chapter headings. For example:

·      The Spendings of Fancy: Facts Answered with Sneers

·      The Magnet Attracting: A Waif Amid Forces

·      His Credentials Accepted: A Babel of Tongues

·      The Lure of the Spirit: The Flesh in Pursuit

·      Ashes of Tinder: The Loosing of Stays

·      The Grind of the Millstones: A Sample of Chaff

Carrie was a frustrating character in many ways. She seemed to be a bit of a naïve and superficial doormat. It was hard to see what these men saw in her. She was continually waiting for them to give her what they promised. As Drieser puts it, ‘time proved the representation false’. She could have been a more rounded, deeper character. But Drouet and Hurstwood were interesting and delightful.

I was reminded of Madame Bovary, Effi Briest and Anna Karenina while reading this novel as each woman sought out happiness through the men around her and made poor choices resulting in tragedy. While Carrie’s tale ends with her triumph on stage rather than her death, she is unfulfilled and alone, reminding readers that fame and fortune do not necessarily bring happiness.

Wayward Women

I am currently reading Sister Carrie (1900) by American author Theodore Dreiser. While I am not yet ready to publish my thoughts on this novel, it brings to mind other books I have read which feature young women who embark on relationships that are contrary to the roles expected of them by society.

One of my all time favourite novels is Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert in which Emma Bovary, a young naïve woman, marries a simple small town doctor. Emma reads romantic literature and is unable to distinguish reality from fiction. She takes a lover and lives a dual life of faithful wife to her husband and mistress in her own romantic fantasy. Emma begins to yearn for refinement and starts spending money on objects that she cannot afford, going into debt and becoming ruined by her adultery. Flaubert’s writing is beautiful, humourous and richly descriptive.

German author Theodor Fontane’s 1895 novel Effi Briest tells a similar tale. At the age of seventeen young and immature Effi is married to a much older man. As her husband travels regularly, Effi becomes lonely and socially isolated in her new home. A notorious womaniser, Crampas, visits Effi and they begin a relationship. When her husband learns of Effi’s disloyalty he seeks divorce and custody of their daughter. This is a melancholy, deliberately paced novel with realistic characters that are not reduced to stereotypes. There are multiple layers to this story too – exploring the decline of the German aristocracy and the pressures of Victoria morality.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) is the story of Anna’s adulterous romance with Count Vronsky, which leads to tragic consequences. The aristocracy has a code of behaviour to which all members must conform. Leaving her loveless marriage and abandoning her child condemn Anna and force her exile from Russian high society. Tolstoy examines Anna’s motives without judgement. There are many characters and plot lines to keep track of. Littered with beautiful passages, Anna Karenina has one of the best opening lines of any novel: “Happy families are all alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”.

This trio of tales are often compared and contrasted. To view these stories as simply romances misses the complexities and richness each author brings to his social critique. The women at the centre serve as vehicles to explore morality, politics, class, and even religion. Each one is extraordinary it its own right and should be treasured as uniquely individual. The authors are masters of their craft. Of the three, Madame Bovary is perhaps the most accessible – better known than Effi Briest, and shorter and less daunting than Anna Karenina. Which is perhaps why I have read Bovary many, many times and the others only once.

Decade of decadence

In 2004 Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. The book received high praise from critics (who frequently compared Hollinghurst to Evelyn Waugh and E.M. Forster) and ended up on many ‘must-read’ lists. So, when I purchased this book and settled down to read it I was looking forward to a biting social satire, along the lines of some of my favourite authors.

Set in 1980s, in Thatcher’s Britain, The Line of Beauty is the story of Nick Guest, a young gay man, who moves into the London home of his school friend Toby Feddens while he finishes his studies. Toby’s father Gerald is a Tory MP, mother Rachael is extremely wealthy and his self-harming sister, Catherine. The story starts in 1983, then jumps to 1986 and 1987. 

In 1983 Nick is naïve and just beginning to explore his sexuality. He befriends Leo, a council worker, and has an affair with him. A few years later, Nick commences an affair with old school friend, Wani, a rich drug addict. The novel is basically a story of Nick coming out, hanging around with privileged party people, and taking cocaine. Looming over this decade, coinciding with Nick’s sexual awakening, is AIDS.

Much has been made of the open sexuality of this novel (the frank gay sex scenes) which readers may react to one way or another. This didn’t concern me. Rather my concern was over the lack of anyone to care about. The characters were shallow, unsympathetic and dull. The overall feel is pretentious.

There are passages in this book that are stunningly well written and where I found myself momentarily interested in these characters. But for the most part I found much of the novel boring and began skimming paragraphs in an effort to reach the end. Having said that, the last 60 pages or so were actually good, but not worth wading through the first 250 pages. This is another Booker Prize winner that I have not been impressed with (see my review of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi).

The BBC made a three part series of this book, which I have not seen, but it is adapted by Andrew Davies who is absolutely brilliant. I have heard that it is better than the book, so it may be worth a viewing.